Compliance assessments of hypothetical geological nuclear waste isolation systems with the draft EPA standard
Preliminary calculations of potential radionuclide discharges from hypothetical repositories in tuff and bedded salt have been completed. The theoretical approach and computational methods are illustrated in this paper with examples for a repository in volcanic tuff. Calculations suggest the following conclusions for the hypothetical tuff repository: 1) sorption of radionuclides by several thousand feet of zeolitized tuff is an effective barrier to migration of actinides even in the absence of solubility constraints. 2) All violations of the EPA Draft Standard in the base case are due to discharges of /sup 99/Tc and /sup 14/C. Retardation due to matrix diffusion, however, may eliminate discharge of these nuclides for realistic groundwater flow rates. 3) If the radionuclides do not flow through several thousand feet of zeolitized tuff, discharges of U and Np under oxidizing conditions may be much larger than the EPA limits. Under reducing conditions, however, the low solubilities of these elements may provide an effective barrier to radionuclide release. For both the tuff and bedded salt sites the investigators have found that calculated radionuclide discharge is very sensitive to the source model chosen. Radionuclide solubility limits, waste form leach rate and mixing processes within the engineered facility must all be considered in modeling the compliance of hypothetical repositories with the EPA Draft Standard.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-76DP00789
- OSTI ID:
- 6724142
- Report Number(s):
- SAND-82-2260C; CONF-821107-6; ON: DE83001170
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 6. international symposium on the scientific basis for radioactive waste management, Boston, MA, USA, 1 Nov 1982
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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